Fox News is Misinformer of the Year for 2020, the first time @mmfa has given the distinction to the network as a whole.
This year was a low point in Fox’s shameful history, and none of its employees should ever live it down.
mediamatters.org/fox-news/misin…
This year was a low point in Fox’s shameful history, and none of its employees should ever live it down.
mediamatters.org/fox-news/misin…
Fox’s misinformation had a direct impact on the lives of every single American this year, whether they watched the network or not. The nation suffered the consequences of the feedback loop between President Trump and his personal propaganda outlet.
Fox spent 2020 recklessly minimizing the pandemic as it took the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans. It’s impossible to calculate how many might still be alive if the network had treated the virus as a real threat to the health of its viewers and the general public. 
Trump's Fox obsession ensured that the federal government’s response would track the complaints, obsessions, and blind spots of its right-wing ideologues.
Most dangerous of all, Fox’s promotion of Dr. Scott Atlas, a radiologist with a contrarian take, attracted Trump’s attention. Trump liked that Atlas told him what he wanted to hear -- that the virus was no big deal -- so he gave him a position on the WH coronavirus task force.
Fox's propagandists not only helped wreck the response to a deadly pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. They also tried to drown a movement for justice out of racism and fear, and, as the year came to a close, waged an assault on America’s democracy.
For Fox's executives and on-air commentators, mass death was simply the cost of doing business. They betrayed their viewers and endangered their fellow Americans because they wanted to protect the president and preserve their position as his state TV outlet of choice.
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